Another parish visited on my pilgrimage!

Number 79 out of 124!  That's how many churches I've visited since the Spring of 2009 on my personal pilgrimage to visit every church in the dioceses of Fresno and Stockton.  I decided that to qualify as a "visit" I would have to attend a Mass or Communion Service, or go to confession or adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  Since a few of the churches seemed like the doors were never open when I had the chance to visit, I modified my visit "standards" after a while.  Now I merely have to stop by and see if the church doors are open and if not, I will say a prayer in honor of the patron saint or the church's name.  If there is a courtyard or "prayer garden" I will say a rosary. 

I checked another church off my list today when I attended Mass at Saint Augustine's parish in Lamont, CA.  It is only 15 minutes away from my apartment in Bakersfield.  It's typical of most farm community parishes in the central valley, offering more masses in Spanish than in English.  But they do have a Mass in English at 11:00am and since I overslept this morning it was a perfect time for me.

The church grounds are very well maintained and there are lots and lots of statues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and quite a few Marian statues as well.  In the nave, there is a shrine to St. Juan Bautista (St John the Baptist) and behind the altar there is a statue of St. Augustine, the patron saint of the parish.

But you can tell it's a poor parish.  The pews are a little old and run down, they still use a hand-held or standing microphone that the priest moves around to wherever he is praying from, and either they don't have an organ or there is no one who can play it.  All of the songs sung at Mass this morning we led a capella by a couple of older ladies from a typewritten song sheet they handed out before Mass!  They had fine voices, but they were evidently not trained music ministers.  Fortunately, 5 of the the 7 songs they chose today I was familiar with, so I was able to join in.

The priest gave a homily I would rank an 8 out of ten.  He started off strong but ended a little weak, in my opinion.  Since today was "Good Shepherd Sunday", that was his topic.  He told of local shepherds who move their flocks sometimes in the dead of night so as to give them better protection when crossing the roads and highways as they search for better grazing fields.  It was really quite interesting at first, but the longer he went on, the less interesting it became. 

With the lack of musical accompaniment and the 25 minute homily, Mass lasted an hour and 15 minutes!

Overall though, it was a great Mass, giving thanks to God for sending us our Good Shepherd to lead us on our journey to His greener pastures.